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Analysis Of Viral Spam

This is an analysis of spam sent by a marketing firm on behalf of Robert Randolph.

The original spam:

Hi

I saw your post on Etree Forums and thought you’d like to know that Robert Randolph & the Family Band just launched a really cool Lap Steel Guitar giveaway. Robert himself will be giving the winner lessons. If you haven’t heard of Robert Randolph yet, you can sample some of his work here: http://pages.m80im.com/?TDoxNjU=

If you like what you hear and would be interested in entering the contest, click this link:

RRFB Lapsteel Guitar Giveaway Contest: http://pages.m80im.com/?TDoxNTk=

If you have any questions/comments, or would like further info on Robert Randolph & the Family Band, please feel free to contact me at any time.

Thank you so much for your time,

Todd
todd@m80im.com

http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles-clean.htm
An effective viral marketing strategy:

1. Gives away products or services
2. Provides for effortless transfer to others
3. Scales easily from small to very large
4. Exploits common motivations and behaviors
5. Utilizes existing communication networks
6. Takes advantage of others' resources

RR's spam uses #1, #2, #4, #5, and #6. #3 is used but not obviously. Using all six strategies makes this a very good example of viral spam.

A breakdown of the spam and the strategies employed in it:

I saw your post on Etree Forums and thought you’d like to know that Robert Randolph & the Family Band just launched a really cool Lap Steel Guitar giveaway.
This section uses #1, #5, and #6. #1 is through the giveaway, #5 is through harvesting my email address from the (#6) existing etree forums.

If you haven’t heard of Robert Randolph yet, you can sample some of his work here: http://pages.m80im.com/?TDoxNjU=
Here #4 is exploited. This spam was targeted to fans of live music and offering samples of music exploits this groups common behaviors.

http://pages.m80im.com/?TDoxNTk=
http://pages.m80im.com/?TDoxNjU=
#2 is exploited through the links given in the spam. There are two things happening here: 1: the last two characters of the url, Tk, are a [web bug]. The page to display is denoted by the 'TDoxN' part of the url. The web bug is very small and only allows for 2704 unique users (but likely less due to different subpages in the 'TDoxN' group). This is ok because viral marketing relies on the initial spamees to forward the email to others. By tracking the small number of users initially sent the first email, m80im.com can tell who forwarded the email and who didn't. By tracking this information, they will know who they should keep sending their viral marketing to. 2: the url is easily forwarded to other people. It is this forwarding that, unfortunatly, makes viral spam work.

Also, by using two web bugs, one for music, one for the contest, m80im.com can tell which link is more popular. This data will help them build better email messages in the future which may look less like spam.


NOTE: The above is simply a text analysis. Below describes the html analysis


I don't know how I could have been so foolish when this email first came to light. The email I received was done in microsoft word then sent to me html formatted. This means the urls posted above are NOT the urls you are sent to when you click on them.

I won't post the complete orignal html email here, only selected portions:

<span class=SpellE>Lapsteel</span> Guitar Giveaway Contest: <a href="http://warnerreprise.com/robertrandolph/contest/index.php">http://pages.m80im.com/?TDoxNTk=</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>

This is the link to the guitar givaway. Although the text READS
http://pages.m80im.com/?TDoxNTk=
it actually sends you to
http://warnerreprise.com/robertrandolph/contest/index.php
probably to take advantage of #3. If I forward the email via html email, the link still goest to warnerreprise.com. If I forward the email via plain text, the pages.m80im.com url will redirect your browser to the warnerreprise.com address.

The other link is:
<a href="http://www.bandbuilder.com/robertrandolph/index.php?ref_code=D17650">http://pages.m80im.com/?TDoxNjU=</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
The same forwarding and real address apply to this page. Again, rule #3 is applied so the servers do not get overburdened. This link goes to www.bandbuilder.com.


What all this adds up to is a campaign. m80 probably orchastrated it, since bullshit like this is what they get paid to do, by setting up the listen server, the giveaway and the sign up for the giveaway page, then sending the original spam.

Who's Involved

It's pretty much all Warner Brothers. www.bandbuilder.com is a product of www.sparkart.com which lists Warner Brothers Records on their front page as a client.

www.bandbuilder.com is used in many other viral marketing campaigns. Here's a post to one of them. Unfortunatly, the people on this messageboard didn't realize the infections, incidious, underhanded nature of the post (but then they are linkin park fans): http://www.messageboard.com/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=&TOPIC_ID=7434

www.repriserecords.com is a sublabel for www.warnermusic.com

Possible moral of this story: If you're a band that gives a shit about your fans, don't sign up to a major record label?